"Hey, Bob, You Got a Tambourine Laying Around? We Gotta Get Somethin' fer Archie ta Play."

[JOv2]

So what do you do if Pharoah Sanders, Gary Burton, or Archie Shepp drop by at your session without their ax? Well, you hand them a tambourine, which is what occurred on 06FEB68, xxMAR68, and 09SEP66, respectively, at sessions for Dave Burrell, Steve Marcus, and Chico Hamilton.

This all got me to thinking: when did the tambourine (which along with the electric guitar helped to characterized the "new" sound of popular music in the mid/late '60s) make its way into straight-ahead jazz as a viable routine instrument that distinguished a group's sound -- as opposed to an instrument used on a few select songs (e.g., "Latin percussion")? The earliest recording I could find was Eddie Harris / Mean Greens (MAR66).

 

[Rudy]

The only tamborine I can think of in jazz was on a tune on a Dave Brubeck Quartet album (one of the "Time" albums, on a 5/4 tune...can't remember which, though). And maybe in an occasional big band setting where, as you've said, it was often used for Latin percussion.

I don't even know if it is a genuine Latin percussion instrument--most of what I've heard in various types of music (mambo, salsa, etc.) have all kinds of percussion but I don't really recall ever hearing it in most of them. I think the same can be said for the cowbell, certainly not as a primary percussion instrument like timbales, congas, clave, etc.

 

[JOv2]

I had a gf in the early '90s that just didn't "get" jazz. I remember playing the Mean Greens CD and on the first selection -- once Ray Codington put down his trumpet he started up tambourine, she said "what's that?". It was the only time I ever recall her having any tangible interest in my jazz recordings...and to think it was the friggin' tambourine that caught her attention -- and she wasn't even listening. Crazy, man.